Jim Harbaugh has the Midas touch, and we’re not talking about mufflers.

Harbaugh climbed out of a UFO two years ago and took the 49ers‘ job, and turned San Francisco’s bumbling losers into instant winners.

He touched washed-up quarterback Alex Smith and turned him into a gunslinger disguised as a CPA. Then Harbaugh replaced the red-hot Smith with Colin Kaepernick, the kid from nowhere (actually Turlock, a suburb of Nowhere).

Gold, gold, gold.

And Saturday night, a golden win for the ages.

There are wins, there are impressive wins, and there are statement wins.

Then there is the Saturday Night Special, the 49ers’ 45-31 win over Green Bay Packers. The 49ers, who have struggled in recent weeks, blew their cover. The word is out: Fear the 49ers.

Or at least respect them to the point of excess stomach acid.

The 49ers play for the NFC title next Sunday against either the Seahawks in San Francisco, or the Falcons in Atlanta. Winner goes to the Super Bowl in New Orleans on Feb. 3.

Only really good teams are left in the hunt, but no other team has a coach like Harbaugh and for sure nobody has a quarterback like Kaepernick, the Turlock Tornado. The combination can be stunning.

Kaepernick and the 49ers spotted the great Aaron Rodgers a 7-0 lead, on a Kaepernick interception, then, well, let Frank Gore tell it.

“It was good we stayed together” after Kaepernick’s interception, said Gore, who ran for a tidy 119 yards himself. “We got rolling, and the game got kind of crazy.”

Kind of crazy? Kind of like a tsunami or avalanche.

Colin was nimble, Colin was quick, Colin ran wild at Candlestick.

Kaepernick passed for 263 yards and two touchdowns, and ran for 181 yards and two more touchdowns, breaking all kinds of NFL records, which seemed to impress him as much as did the postgame box lunch.

Everyone knows Kaepernick has a rocket arm and sprinter speed. But until Saturday, that speed has been more of a lurking threat than a reality. Then: Mama mia.

– No team wants any part of Kaepernick. He was phenomenal and unstoppable, a new mutant strain of NFL quarterback.

– Nobody has coached up his team better than Harbaugh, whose decision to move Kaepernick into the starting role set off the hottest, angriest debate in recent Bay Area sports history.

Weird dude, that Harbaugh. But how’s he doing?

(By the way, Jim’s brother John is still around, too, coaching the Baltimore Ravens to a playoff win Saturday. Could an all-Harbaugh Super Bowl be looming?)

Of course, Harbaugh and Kaepernick aren’t the entire story.

Wide receiver Michael Crabtree, the Crustacean Sensation, caught nine passes for 119 yards and two touchdowns. The way he’s playing, Crab could get open in a broom closet.

Defensive lineman Justin Smith, the One-Armed Bandit, his left arm held together with duct tape and paper clips, played a hugely inspiring role in leading a defense that was able to limit the league’s No. 1 quarterback to a very pedestrian (for him) game. The Packers’ offensive linemen attacked Smith’s left arm like hungry hounds fighting over a meaty bone.

Ancient running back Gore punched holes in the center of a Packers defense made doughy by being stretched beyond limits by Kaepernick.

Roman seemingly installed an entire new playbook between the 49ers’ last regular-season game and Saturday, and Kaepernick ran it to perfection.

Can the 49ers do this again? Why not?

There was some fear on the part of fans that the playoff pressure would reveal Kaepernick’s inexperience. What is his fear level?

After the interception, his teammates were watching.

“You want to see what his body language is” after the interception, center Jonathan Goodwin said. “It was good.”

Nerves? Butterflies? Not for the Turlock Tornado. He doesn’t talk much, but he wears garish, look-at-me football cleats, he celebrates touchdowns by Kaepernick-ing – kissing his biceps – and when he was double-team tackled at the end of a run, a crunching hit, Kaepernick leapt to his feet and spiked the ball and snarled, drawing a penalty for taunting.